Blog November 2, 2011
Food shapes cities
You are what you eat. Architect and author Carolyn Steel explains why this is true for both individuals and cities in her book Hungry City, and in her TED Talk (above).
Food—how it’s produced, how it gets to the city and how it ends up on our tables—shares a history with urbanism that goes back thousands of years, and making that system sustainable is vital to our health and future.
Evergreen’s programs, such as our Community Supported Agriculture, the Farmers’ Market at EBW and our various food and cooking workshops for children and adults, aim to raise awareness of these issues, and the ways we can all contribute to that end.
Comments
We had Carolyn in as a speaker for the Toronto Food Policy Council’s 20th anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
Carolyn’s presentation was fascinating, including:
• Clear links between the historical scale of cities relative to their ability to ship, grow or annex food
• An example of the earliest food hub in the city of Ur
• Perhaps the most interesting part–effusive adoration for Southern Ontario–apparently “the mothership of the progressive food movement–beam me up scotty”.
“...effusive adoration for Southern Ontario–apparently ‘the mothership of the progressive food movement–beam me up scotty.’”
So exciting to see that all the hard work is being recognized––let’s keep it up!